


i dream, awake

by hulklinging



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (not the sexy kind of choking), Choking, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-The Raven King, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, but no explicit spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6744178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes nightmares are just nightmares.</p>
<p>Ronan didn't know he had those, anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i dream, awake

Ronan knows he's dreaming.

He's walking through new forest, one without a name. It is known and yet not, because every corner feels familiar.

And then he comes across something that does not belong.

It's a car. It's overgrown, so at first he can't get a good look at it. It's a red Mustang, bumper stickers fading. No, it's a white Mitsubishi. It's an orange Camaro. It's his BMW. As he gets closer, it solidifies, or maybe his eyes stop playing tricks. It's definitely his car. He thinks it might always have been.

He has the feeling there's something in the trunk.

He doesn't like this, this horrible anticipation rotting through his gut. He stomps over, opens up the trunk, and the stink of decay hits him all at once.

It's a mess of beaks and claws. The night terror, the one he brought back and Gansey helped him kill. The one they took out to the Barns and buried there. He lets out a breath, even as he turns away. He thought it was going to be something much worse.

"Ronan?"

He freezes. That's Matthew's voice.

Matthew is in the trunk now, eyes squeezed tight, curled up in a ball. He's shaking and his voice sounds much younger than his age. There's a flickering around him, like hungry flames, although they're only visible in the corners of Ronan's vision.

"Ronan, why didn't you save me?"

"I did." He can't bring himself to touch this Matthew, even as his brother starts to cry. He saved the real Matthew. He knows he did. He doesn't want to risk this one being real, too. He can't touch him.

He leaves the trunk open, but starts to back away. As soon as he steps away, the body in the trunk is changing again. Matthew's voice is abruptly cut off, and now the body is tied up, straining arms behind his back, blindfold over his eyes.

"No." That's Ronan, the protest escaping him before he can help it.

In real life, the demon only had Adam's hands and eyes. But here, in this nightmare, he must have Adam's tongue as well, because he's whispering the most terrible things. Every decision Ronan has ever regretted, everything he's ever blamed himself before, falling from Adam's lips, lips Ronan was kissing just hours ago.

Ronan's going to be sick.

"Get out of him," he growls.

Adam smiles, and gets louder.

Almost against his own will, Ronan walks back to the BMW. He's just going to close the trunk and walk away, he tells himself. But instead he reaches out, grabs at the blindfold and yanks it off. He needs to see it, see those eyes moving unnaturally, remind himself that this isn't Adam.

The eyes aren't Adam's at all.

"Miss me?" Kavinsky's voice spills from Adam's mouth, and it's his eyes staring out from Adam's face. Ronan jerks back, but the bonds around Adam's wrists are gone, and it's those hands that come for him, wrapping themselves around Ronan's neck and squeezing tight.

Ronan has dreamt these hands a hundred times. He knows them like he knows Chainsaw, the Barns, the BMW. It's Kavinsky's stare and Kavinsky's smile, but these are unmistakably Adam Parrish's hands around his neck, tighter and tighter-

"Ronan!"

There are hands on his shoulders, and he's gasping for air, the rest of his body paralyzed as he tries to escape the dreaming. Adam's over him, looking like he should, concern in his eyes. It's his hands on his shoulders. And for a moment, that touch burns.

"Don't fucking touch me!"

His limbs flail, and Adam backs away as he sits up. Ronan has one hand out in front of him and the other one on his own neck. He's not sure if the ache is a remnant of the dream or bruises beginning to form.

Adam is on the edge of the bed, and there's a red mark on his cheek from where Ronan hit him, in his panic to put space between them.

"Shit," he breathes. "I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine," says Adam, too quickly. "I shouldn't have woken you up."

Not that it excuses him, but he had thought Adam knew to be more cautious when he was sleeping. Adam must see the question on his face, because his eyes dart away, to the room around them, to Ronan's neck, and then back to meet his stare.

"You were talking in your sleep."

"What the fuck," is all he can think of to say. He didn't think he did that. "What was I saying?"

Adam looks more magic than man, in the predawn hours. Something about the quality of the moonlight peeking through Ronan's window, combined with how the Barns has a way of highlighting strange beauty.

"'Adam, please.' That's what you were saying. Over and over."

Ronan doesn't know what to say to that. He reaches out, the gentlest of touches as he brushes Adam's cheek. Adam takes the hand from Ronan's neck and laces their fingers together, his other hand tracings the shadows the dream had left against his skin there. Ronan wonders if Adam is comparing sizes, if he knows the bruises would fit his fingers exactly.

"A nightmare," Ronan gets out, finally.

"Did you bring anything back?"

Ronan looks at him, at the emotion in his eyes that they haven't put a name to yet, but he knows it's in his own gaze as well. He takes their entwined hands to his mouth, presses a kiss to them, and when Adam smiles, it's just Adam.

"No," he says, and he doesn't lie.


End file.
